Overdue
by SuperGroverAway
Summary: The twins and Soos encounter a ghastly figure on the way home from the Shack, and things quickly go horrifyingly downhill from there.


"LOOKOUTFORTHEPERSON!"

The drive back to the Shack had taken an interesting turn. The figure in the middle of the road seemed to appear from out of absolute nowhere. One moment the road was empty, and the next she was suddenly there, illuminated by the headlights. Mabel spotted her just in time to alert everyone with a near-deafening shriek of alarm, and the portly driver slammed on the breaks. The vehicle was ground to such a screeching stop that its occupants would have all gone straight through the windshield had not their threadbare seat belts held them in place.

"...Ow." Dipper clutched his gut. It felt like all his major organs had slammed his rib cage at a speed of at least forty miles an hour. As the preteen passengers recovered from the jolt, Soos leaned out the window and offered up a flurry of profuse apologies.

"Oh dude, I'm crazy sorry! My bad, I didn't mean to like, run you over or anything like that. I totally didn't see you until….you…uh….hey, are you okay?"

The mysterious woman was in extremely rough shape. Sickly greenish-grey skin stretched tightly over a figure so gaunt, she looked like a living skeleton. Her unnervingly boney frame was covered in turn by a ragged black robe. Her face meanwhile remained hidden from sight behind a mop of rag pitch-black locks. As she stood there, she didn't utter so much as a single sound at first. She merely quietly gazed down towards the ground, as if lost in a trance.

Dipper could feel the hairs on his neck reflexively stand straight as steel beams. Something told him that whoever this eerie stranger was, chances were that she wasn't out for an early evening stroll. "Um…Soos?"

"It's okay, Dipper man, I got this." His friend gently motioned for patience as he tried to responsibly handle everything "Hey! You're not lookin' so hot. Are you all right? I said I'm sorry about that whole 'almost running you over' thing. Lady, you all right? If you need a ride or anything, I'd be happy to…"

His jaw dropped when she finally raised her head. Frayed clumps of hair fell away to reveal a wizened skull-like visage. Inside her hideously sunken eyes, twin orbs of scarlet glowed with a wicked intensity as they locked unblinkingly on the horrified trio. The hearts of everyone in the truck skipped a beat, and a dead silence settled upon the lonely backwoods road. The hideous quiet was finally broken when the grotesque hag opened her mouth to let out a blood-chilling moan.

"The siiiiiiiiins..." She raised a claw-like finger and pointed.

"….Uh...what?" Soos mumbled.

"The sins! The sins!" She repeated, her wispy voice rapidly rising. "The siiiiiiiiins! The sins of the past! They shall be repaid!"

"…Could….c-could you repeat that? So y-you need a ride where?" He murmured, still desperately hoping he had just misheard her. The twins finally erupted with fear.

"I _CHANGED_ MY MIND! DON'T LOOK OUT FOR HER!" Mabel remorsefully yelled.

"SHE DOESN'T NEED A RIDE!" Dipper hollered. "DRIVE, SOOS! DRIVE!"

Spurred into action by their cries, the chubby man threw the truck into reverse, flung it back into drive and pounded the gas pedal. The piercing squeal of tires rent the night air as they took off around the mysterious banshee-like wraith. The panicked driver tried to give her the widest berth as he could. Everyone still felt a hideous chill emanating from the ghoul as they passed her by.

"What the heck is that?" Mabel squealed breathlessly.

"It's Ddefinitely not good!" Her brother answered back. The twins looked back out the rear window, and immediately wished that they hadn't. With a jerk, her head twisted around a complete one hundred and eighty degrees, and she locked her unblinking stare upon the speeding truck.

"You shall pay! _Paaaaaay_! YOU SHALL PAAAAAAY!" Slowly she rose off the ground and up into the air. Suddenly she was a blur, firing off in hot pursuit like a demonic missile.

"Dipper, fix it! Fix it, fix it, fix it!" Moving like lightning, Mabel frantically reached into his vest pocket and yanked Journal Number Three out onto his lap. Dipper of course needed no extra bidding.

"Okay, okay…." He furiously searched for any helpful suggestions. "Gotta be something about vengeful spirits...let's see...fire pixie…no…floating disembodied ears….no, not that….the rock that gets huffy if you look at it for too long….no..."

"PAAAAAAAAY! YOU SHALL PAAAAAAAAAAY!" The hideous abomination screamed, sending freezing shivers racing down their spines.

"Uh….so does anyone remember getting on the bad side of a ghost recently?" Dipper's voice cracked hard with stress. "Anyone?"

"I-I stole some of your fries yesterday at dinner!" Mabel confessed. "Do ghosts get picky about fries? Or potato stuff?"

"Hey, now that you mention it, yeah!" Soos perked up. "Y'know that little dude who hangs around the Shack? The one who's always tries to eat everything? I was mowing the lawn yesterday, and he was taking a nap when I passed him, and he looked kinda ticked that I woke him up, so…."

He glanced up briefly into the rearview mirror and saw that he was getting nothing but incredulous stares from the twins. "Oh wait….did you say ghosts, or goats? Sorry, it's crazy hard to hear with all that screaming going on-"

PAAAAAAAAAAY!" Another vengeful howl assaulted their ears. The specter picked up speed, and suddenly she was gliding neck and neck with them, even as the vehicle tore down the road as fast as the engine would let it go. She jerked her neck and affixed a burning stare onto them. "YOU MUST PAAAAAAAAY!"

"Oh, just die! Die you awful shrieky lady, die! Die!" Mabel bravely tried to keep her at bay. The veritable sea of empty chicken buckets and chip bags lying scattered all over the floor of the car gave the tween a ready supply of ammunition. She began hurling handfuls of rubbish as speedily as she could.

"I'm sorry, nature!" Mabel made sure to apologize while garbage fluttered all over the road in their wake. "I'm so sorry! I'll pick it up later, I promise!"

It was a noble attempt, but it did little good against their paranormal pursuer. She let out an inhuman snarl, and went fully translucent. For a moment she was suddenly a milky white blur as she passed straight through the front of the truck. The engine immediately sputtered off, and to everyone's horror the vehicle immediately started to cruise to a stop.

"Oh, not cool!" Soos's eyes were nearly bugging clean out of their sockets while he furiously worked every gear possible. "I'm like, pretty sure I'm not insured for this!"

His efforts of course were of no use. The truck soon came to a complete halt, ending the brief but epic chase.

"PAAAAAAY!" The ghostly woman now hovered a full five feet off the ground before them. "You shall pay! Three hundred pieces, or I end you all!"

"No thank you!" Mabel beat the back of the driver's seat with her palm. "Soos c'mon! Let's go!"

"I'm trying, dudes! I'm trying! Dipper-man, you got anything?" Soos gasped. All three were fast losing their minds from panic. Dipper nearly ripped a few pages out as he desperately searched Journal Number 3. Unfortunately, the book had an unfortunate habit of never really being all that helpful whenever they needed it most.

"I got nothing! C'mon, c'mon…for poltergeists, turn to page thirty-eight…for ghost chickens, go to page fifty-three…okay seriously?" The boy groaned in frustration. "Ghost chickens? Why is there three whole pages devoted to-"

"PAAAAAAY!" The wraith incessantly demanded. "YOU WILL PAY OR I SHALL END YOU! PAAAAAAAAAAY!"

In place of legs, shapeless wispy tendrils floated out from beneath the ragged edges of her dress. Three of them aggressively reached out like an unholy trio of tentacles. In the blink of an eye they had thrown the doors open and effortlessly dragged everyone from the truck.

"THREE HUNDRED!" By now her jaw had nearly distended all the way down to the base of her neck. The terrible screams had reached a near-deafening pitch. "THREE HUNDRED PIECES!"

"We heard you already, okay?" Mabel snapped. The relentless requests were starting to wear her patience a little thin, even as she feared for her very life. "Dipper, what does she want?"

"I don't know!" Dipper admitted his utter cluelessness. The frustrated preteen mentally sorted and resorted through everything he knew learned about the paranormal at a speed that would've put most computers to utter shame. But no matter how hard he drove his brain, he was still coming up empty. He just couldn't understand. All they had done tonight was go to the-

Wait.

The boy sprang a hunch. It felt like a bit of a long shot. Then again, to be perfectly fair it felt like his entire summer so far had been nothing but insane long shots. Wasting no time, he plunged his hands into his pockets and conducted a frantic search. "C'mon, c'mon! I gotta have…yes!"

He felt cold metal. Maybe they had a chance. Dipper hurriedly started to count the handful of change. "Letsee...a dollar...a dollar twenty-five…dollar fifty, seventy-five, eighty-five, ninety….ninety one….ninety-two…dollar ninety-three, no!"

His heart plummeted with despair. It wasn't enough. "Change! Guys, I need change, fast!"

"No offense dude, but I don't think a different outfit's gonna help!" Soos replied, helplessly dangling upside down. "Besides, the classic hat-vest combo really works for you!"

"I gotcha, bro!" Mabel almost tore her sweater pouch clean off while she fished out a batch of quarters and dimes, and hurriedly did the math. "Dollar-fifty, right here!"

She didn't know why she was doing this. What she did know however was that her brother had gotten them out of tricky messes before, and she trusted him to do it yet again. The girl hurled her offerings to the ground. "HERE! Money for whatever!"

Dipper did the same, yelling hoarsely to their captor. "Take it! Just take it already!"

The coins lay in a scattered heap at before the wraith. A few of the limb-like spirit tendrils meticulously sorted through it until they had collected up three dollars in exact change. One tendril deposited that amount into the ghostly woman's open hand, and Dipper felt a freezing chill as another tendril placed the remainder into his pocket. Now that she had her three hundred cents, she unceremoniously released them all, sending her captives tumbling back down to earth.

"The debt has been…paaaid…." The blood-chilling shrieking promptly tuned down into mere mournful droning. "I forgive your overdue fee…I forgive you….I forgiiiiiiiive yooouuuu…."

A thick mist swirled around her while she rapidly dissipated from sight. "Thank you for renting at Video Huuuuut….thank yooooou..."

Before completely vanishing, she flicked a boney hand at the truck. Instantly the headlights shined on as the engine roared back to life. Only a second later nothing was left but a faint haunting echo still eerily lingering in the air. The little band lay sprawled out on the road, hearts pounding like kettledrums as they recovered from the hellish ordeal.

"Oh man, I'm sorry dudes. That was totally my bad." Soos dutifully took the blame as he crawled back to his feet. "Completely forgot to pay my late fine while we were at the store. Sorry."

The gentle giant scratched his head and shrugged bemusedly. "Jeez, the new management is crazy strict."

Mabel tensed up with a gasp, and then tore off into the truck. Frantically she rummaged about the back seat. "Please still be there, please still be there…YES! IT'S STILL HERE!"

She hopped out and performed an impromptu dance of jubilation. Soos instantly brightened up at the sight of the DVD in her hands. "Oh man! So she let us keep 'Ducktective Begins?'"

"Yeah she did!" The little girl whooped ecstatically before giving him a mighty high-five. "VICTORY!"

"All right! Waterfowl-themed mystery films are the best!" He whooped. "Dipper, did you hear?"

"...Yay." The boy finally peeled himself up off the ground just in time to receive a mighty noogie from his friend.

"Awesome thinking back there!" He laughed. "Totally saved our butts, and we're still on for tonight! Two for two, dude!"

"N-no problem." Dipper was quite the stark contrast from his triumphant comrades. He resembled a shell-shocked soldier as he wearily piled into the truck with the others.

His lack of celebratory attitude didn't go unnoticed. After buckling up, Mabel gave him a shake. "Hey! Aren't you excited for Duck-tective?"

The girl flipped the DVD case horizontally and improvised a plastic duckbill. "Quack quack! Time to go quack the case! Quack quack quack!"

She relentlessly nudged him with the fake beak. It didn't take long at all until her goofy antics forced him to crack a weak smile. He straightened up a little."Okay, okay. Look, I'm fine, see?"

"Nuh-uh-uh!" Mabel pulled a face, then promptly delivered a barrage of gentle pokes to his cheek. "Doesn't look like it! C'mon, brother, how can you be so down?"

"Seriously?" Dipper exhaustedly slouched in his seat. "Because movie night so does not need to be this hard..."


End file.
